ENERGY AND DEVOTION IN ELEVENTH-HOUR WORKMEN
A. B. Parker
The brethren will remember that when the materials for the tabernacle had been wrought upon and the work was completed, Moses set up the tabernacle, and as he set it up each part functioned (Exodus 40). He burned the incense on the golden altar for instance, he put the lampstand in the holy place and lighted the lamps, he set the shewbread in order on the pure table; each part functioned as it was set up. I use that as a typical indication that when we come together we should be prepared to function. In principle, the tabernacle is set up locally when we come together. Materials have been prepared and we come together for a purpose.
Not only should we be in faith but we should be prepared to function. Really, there should be no undue waiting in a prophetic meeting—the tabernacle functions when it is set up.
Jehovah had brought in devastating plagues upon Egypt to deliver His people, and He is ready to help us now to be delivered from the world; He is not destroying the world at the moment. He is overthrowing it in the hearts of the saints so that it no longer has its appeal and attraction to the believer. Our thoughts and desires should be related to another world and our outlook should be to make progress in the things of God. We see that when Israel was brought out of Egypt they went through the Red Sea, came into the wilderness,
entered into covenant with God, but immediately broke that covenant, and while Moses was on the mount they turned to idolatry. But the tabernacle was the remarkable product of a heave-offering from a recovered people. The camp had become idolatrous and God came in in discipline and severe judgment. We can trace all this history in our own experience in recent years. We have had part in error and misrepresentation of the truth. Very severe discipline has come upon us, but some of us have been salvaged out of it and I trust we are truly a recovered people. The recovered people brought in abundance the heave-offerings of materials required to construct the tabernacle, to provide a place where God could complacently dwell amongst His people. There was such abundance that Moses had to tell the people not to bring any more. Such feelings are proper to a recovered people. We have had those feelings, dear brethren, but we do not want to cease having them. Let us see that one reason why such departure was allowed was that, as recovered, we would have such depth of feelings that we would bring more than is necessary to furnish God’s dwelling place.
We should not be getting to as few meetings as we feel we can justify, but getting to every meeting. It is thus that we are available all the time for the full service and function of the place where God delights to dwell. Let us therefore learn to function as soon as the tabernacle is set up. Let us be together in exercise about the occasion, acting in faith, on good terms with the blessed Spirit. If so, nothing will be bogging us down, our spirits will not be under burden, our consciences will be free because, as moving in the Spirit, we become a living, operating organism in which the Spirit of God finds delight and to which He delights to add His part.
In the passage I have read reference is made
to early morn, the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, and the eleventh hour. After the eleventh hour there are no more idle standing in the market-place. The idle ones have been called into activity. John says, “It is the last hour”, 1 John 2: 18. That is the twelfth hour. We have passed the eleventh hour. The Lord expects us all to be at work in the twelfth hour.
Those who came in at early morn did so on the basis of contract; we do not want to do that.
We should come in, dear brethren, conscious of having been shown mercy and compassion which saved us from the errors which we were supporting and condoning. God has saved us in order that we might yet be a peculiar people unto Himself, capable of spontaneous outburst and outflow from our heart’s because of the mercy that has salvaged us and brought us into the vineyard at the eleventh hour. These workmen do not seek a contract, it is wondrous mercy that hired us at all, when it seemed that we would not be hired. But having been hired, let us be “abounding always in the work of the Lord”, knowing that our toil will not be in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15: 58). We are assured that the Lord will do what is right; we have made a miserable failure of things, but He would just say to us, ‘Just trust Me; I will do what is right’. “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”, Genesis 18: 25. He certainly will. Dear brethren, we have so much for which to be thankful; we have been shown such mercy that we should not regard as hardship the matter of coming together; we should not be too concerned about the weather; we should be so full of gratitude to the God who has salvaged us out of chaos and has brought us into the clear shining of His presence, that we are ready workers, we are ready to work hard and diligently in the vineyard. There will not be long pauses this evening, and we are going to have a full time. Dear brethren, my purpose in speaking thus
is to stimulate our hearts that we may function acceptably and in a living way in the sphere which the living God has chosen for His dwelling place.
Word in meeting for ministry, Brooklyn, N.Y.
14 December 1976